


so here we go head first

by endofadream



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Dorks in Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Art, M/M, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Reunions, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofadream/pseuds/endofadream
Summary: Steve rests his hand on Bucky’s face and says, so quietly Bucky could have easily missed it, “I missed you.”The first tear falls, then the next, and Bucky doesn't bother to try and stop them.





	so here we go head first

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the artwork from the extremely talented [esther!](http://umikochannart.tumblr.com/post/171500634012/he-doesnt-care) thank you for putting this heart-wrenching, emotional series out on the internet! title from “aquaman” by WALK THE MOON because you can’t listen to that and tell me it’s not steve and bucky.

A small Wakandan aircraft lands about a hundred yards from Bucky’s hut, the rapid motion of its blades making the lush green grass around it sway. Its sleek black exterior gleams in the hot sun. For long minutes there is no movement, just the chop of the blades in the quiet clearing. Bucky's heart beats faster: though he does not know, he  _feels_.

As he watches, his remaining hand on the opening that serves as the entrance into its drab interior, a tall, broad figure steps out. They walk with a purposeful gait and a slight sway to their hips. They’re wearing a dark brown jacket, dark jeans, and a plain shirt. They’re dark-haired, white-skinned, and broad-shouldered, though nondescript from a distance.

Bucky would know that figure anywhere.

When Steve makes it to the hut Bucky’s knees are a little weak, fingers clenching a little harder than necessary on the heavy clay of the hut’s walls. Steve has longer hair and a beard and a weariness to eyes that Bucky recognizes too well.

But when he smiles at Bucky, all of that doesn't matter, because that smile might as well be the same one from 1944 for all that it sends Bucky’s insides fluttering.

For a moment they stare. Finally, Bucky says, “You have a beard.”

Steve chuckles. “And you’re wearing a toga.”

“It’s a kaftan,” replies Bucky indignantly. Months out of the ice in Wakanda have drastically changed his views on Western ideology, clothing included.

Chuckling again, Steve says, “Whatever you say, Buck.”

Then he kisses him.

Bucky forgets how to breathe. Steve’s hand goes to the back of his head, encounters his half-knot and adjusts lower, so his fingers can thread through the hair that Bucky hasn’t been bothered to cut since he woke up. Steve’s beard catches on Bucky’s, a new sensation that he can’t find it in himself to complain about. The background noise of distant birds becomes secondary to the slick slide of their lips, their inhales as they part to breathe or change angles.

Steve rests his hand on Bucky’s face and says, so quietly Bucky could have easily missed it, “I missed you.” 

The first tear falls, then the next, and Bucky doesn't bother to try and stop them. He puts his hand on Steve’s sun-warmed shoulder and grips, tight. Grounds himself in the foreign-familiar feel of the bulk of Steve’s muscle.

“I’m not gonna go,” murmurs Steve. The hand on Bucky’s face moves to brush the hair from Bucky’s face; the other gently curves around the back of Bucky’s neck. Just the simple touch is enough to make Bucky crumple: his next inhale is a ragged gasp that Steve quickly kisses away, and says, “Okay? I’m here, Buck. I told you I’d come back.”

“I know,” Bucky says. “I know, but I didn’t, I couldn’t—”

“Buck—”

“I’m sorry I went back under,” Bucky interrupts. “I’m sorry I ran away, Steve, but I didn't know what to do.”

His voice rises, just the tiniest bit. Steve’s eyes are pinched at the corners, mouth drawn in a thin line. The late afternoon sun halos behind him, shrouding him in light. It makes him appear unearthly, already so out of place with his white skin and All-American presence, just the way he’d appeared in half-remembered dreams in cryo.

Not for the first time does Bucky wonder if he is actually still asleep. Steve is his second chance, and Bucky does not deserve second chances, no matter what Shuri says. Though wise beyond her years, she has never experienced viscera between her fingers or the pop of a spine beneath her hands.

“Bucky, listen to me,” begins Steve. His thumb runs along the arch of Bucky’s cheekbone, over and over, a steady metronome of comfort. “You did _not_ run away. You did what you felt was the best thing to do.”

“It was selfish.”

“You were scared,” reasons Steve, low and calming. He places his other hand on Bucky’s hip and gently urges him forward, until the soft cloth of Bucky’s kaftan brushes against the rough denim of Steve’s jeans. Bucky all but melts against him. “You had those words, sweetheart. I get it.”

It’s the first time Steve’s called him that since 1944.

“You don’t, though,” Bucky says, because he always has to fuck things up, always has to keep running his mouth when he knows he should shut it. It isn’t anger; that had burned out of him long ago, leaving Bucky healthy but not hale. It’s something closer to self-pity, which may as well be anger, or at least its cousin, for it brings with it hatred, sparking and unpredictable.

Bucky is acutely aware of the empty space on his left side. He doesn’t miss the arm, not its weight or its various safeguards or who it has killed, but at least when he had it there was an appearance that he was whole, not this fragile thing with jagged edges and black holes where certain memories used to be.

“You don’t get it,” Bucky says, and tries to push away.

Steve’s grip holds steadfast, though lax enough that Bucky could break away, if he really wanted to. The thing is, he doesn’t. He wants to, but he doesn’t want to. If he keeps running, eventually he’ll collapse. There have been too many dreams where Bucky had done just that.

“You’re right.” Steve nods. “I don’t. I slept for seventy years while you spent it being tortured. And I hate that, Buck. I hate it so much. If I could change it I would.”

“But you can’t.”

“I can’t,” Steve affirms. “Don’t mean I’m not here now, though.”

“Why?” Bucky asks. He looks into Steve’s eyes and becomes entranced, like a poor soul that Medusa had reduced to stone. “Why did you come back?”

“Because I need you,” replies Steve simply. He dips his head and kisses Bucky again, a long, slow press of their lips that doesn’t evolve into anything else. He takes Bucky’s remaining hand in his and slots their fingers together. “I can’t do this without you.”

“What,” says Bucky, “the war or life?”

“Both.”

“I’m not the same man that was at your six before,” Bucky warns. Half-hearted, because Steve gives him a lopsided smile and kisses him again.

“That’s good,” Steve says, “because I’m not Captain America anymore.”

——

“You never were,” Bucky says. “Captain America, I mean.”

He lets Steve back them into his hut, the dying Wakandan light orange-red around them as it begins to lower towards the brush. After a walk around the lake Bucky couldn’t ignore the electricity thrumming under his skin any longer, and he’d let Steve take charge, kissing him with obvious intent until they were both breathing heavily.

Steve chuckles and runs his hand through Bucky’s hair, gently letting it loose. “Is that so?”

“Mhmm.” Bucky loops his arm around Steve’s neck and backs towards the small bed pushed against the wall. The sheets are still rumpled from the night before, and Bucky thinks back to how once that would have bothered him to have anything less than army-perfect bedsheets tucked in and smoothed out. “Once a punk, always a punk. Spangly outfit don’t mean nothin’.”

Steve lets out a quiet noise and ducks his head to kiss at the side of Bucky’s neck, gently pushing Bucky’s hair out of the war. Bucky moans, shivery, as Steve says, “You don’t…god, Buck, you don’t know how fuckin’ good it is to hear home in your voice again.”

What is home? Bucky has wondered that since the first time he stared up at the stars from a muddy foxhole. Back then, home was thousands of miles away, only a concept. He didn't realize right away that home was Steve, not Brooklyn; though they’d both grown up there, surrounded in concrete and brick, the physical embodiment was only the surface.

Wakanda isn’t quite home, but Steve here makes it feel like it.

Steve urges Bucky back and Bucky goes, landing on his elbow and spreading out, opening his legs for Steve to crawl between. Above him Steve is all dark, slicked-back hair and dark shadows, the light’s thin fingers unable to reach this far into the hut. Bucky reaches up to stroke along the beard, letting the rough bristle scratch against the pads of his fingers.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asks, quiet and unsure, bracing himself with his elbow. Nods towards his left side and adds, “I—I still don't have my arm.”

Steve’s eyes go impossibly soft, brows knitting as he looks down. For a long moment he says nothing; Bucky’s vision wobbles with tears until Steve finally reaches a hand out and cups Bucky’s face. The silence goes on a little longer, like Steve is trying to find his own words. The air inside the hut is heavy with heat, maybe made heavier by their unspoken confessions.

“Buck,” Steve finally says, and his own eyes are wet, voice thick with emotion, “I’d have you any way.”

It is as much a declaration as anything else. Simple, but spilling over with meaning. Letting out a quiet, choked sob that he isn’t able to suppress Bucky blinks and lets the tears fall for the second time, saying, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Steve brings their lips together, deep and sweet while he gently works the knot of the garment covering the stump of Bucky’s metal arm free. He lets that material spread, open like a bloomed flower, and teases his fingers along the fabric at Bucky’s neck, urging it down Bucky’s flesh arm, trailing his fingers after it light enough to make Bucky shiver. “Yeah, baby. Any way, as long as you’ll let me.”

Bucky frees his arm, threads his fingers through Steve’s hair, and holds on.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is [here](https://endofadream.tumblr.com) and instagram is [here](https://instagram.com/wintersoldiered), if you’re into that sort of thing! as always, reviews and kudos very much appreciated <3


End file.
